The Musketeers reboot was a swashbuckling success

The fighter, the lover, the leader of the pack and the eager young pup on a quest for vengeance.

All the stock characters reported for duty present and correct as The Musketeers (BBC1) reported for duty once more. Did we really need another romp around the pages of Alexandre Dumas, a classic that’s been pillaged on countless occasions?

As the characters of Athos, Aramis, Porthos and D’Artagnan were introduced with brief vignettes, it seemed we were headed for familiar ground.

A bit of broody boozing in a hostelry here, a bit of leaping from a balcony there, this was the Musketeers of old, a cartoon caper hung on a history of old-school chivalry and distressed damsels.

But as the smoke cleared from the cruel killing that puts fire in young D’Artagnan’s belly, this new Musketeers hinted that it might turn out to be a bit weightier than the usual lightfooted dance with Dumas.

Yes, there’s swordplay of various varieties on offer at regular intervals, but this is a slightly more adult take on the Musketeer genre.

The parts are well cast, with former Skins star Luke Pasqualino, now all grown up, making the leap from youth drama to adult adventure with aplomb, Tom Burke offering a troubled Athos genuinely hung up on his past and Howard Charles a sparky presence as the pugilistic Porthos.

It’s not a stretch to cast Santiago Cabrera as the lover in the pack, but here was a character with more depth than your typical male tart.

There was a genuine sense of buddy-bonding chemistry between this quartet and there was an ace up the sleeve in the identity of their arch enemy: step forward Peter Capaldi as Cardinal Richelieu, puppet-master of chinless King Louis XIII, supplying a genuine sense of menace to the proceedings.

So the scene has been set in an opening episode that did a capable job of introducing its key players. Now it has to raise the bar and the signs are promising.